Lady Long Rider passes through

Tuesday

Jul 22, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Kortny Hahn

Lady Long Rider Bernice Ende made a stop in Cheboygan over the weekend on her travels from the northwest corner of Montana to Maine — an 8,000 mile, two-and- a-half-year trip.Ende said on her travels covering 22,000 miles in 10 years, she has met a lot of wonderful people and has been amazed by how helpful and receptive people have been about the journey she is making.“It’s not about me on some la dee da adventure,” said Ende. “It’s a testimony of our country. It’s so hard, physically, but it’s so rewarding.”While she was riding across the Upper Peninsula with her horses Essie Pearl and Montana Spirit, she was thinking about how she was going to make it across the Mackinac Bridge. “I didn’t know how I was going to do it, until it happened,” she said. “I don’t know how I am going to get through Detroit, until it happens.”Ende said the day before she was going to cross the bridge, she had met with some people who were working there. They allowed her to stay on their property that night, then made arrangements for her and her two horses to be hauled across the bridge.She was excited to be able to see Lake Michigan as she was approaching the bridge and also enjoyed being able to camp on its banks and swim in Lake Huron.“It was just so amazing,” said Ende. “Michigan has been such a huge surprise to me. There’s water everywhere. Cheboygan, it is an attractive community. And I didn’t know there was so much woods. I would love to come back and just ride through, slowly.”When she gets to the lower part of the state, she is uncertain how she is going to continue on her trip. She has several different options — either going through Port Huron into Canada to get to Maine, or going down through to the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The decision will be made sometime during the next couple weeks it will take her to ride through the state.She said the ride she is doing is a testimony of the willpower and the strength of the country and how everyone wants to be a part of the story. People have opened up their homes and barns to Ende along the way, offering her a place to stay and helping her in any way they can.“You can’t believe how much I appreciate all of the help,” said Ende. “It makes it all worthwhile.”Ende said she thought people were going to laugh at her the first time she tackled a long ride. Growing up in a German Catholic family and doing things out of the ordinary that ladies didn’t normally do, she said she had a fear people would look at her funny and laugh at her.“I’m sure that’s where the fear comes from,” she said. “It’s hard to overcome that sometimes. It’s hard to overcome those things; to face your fears.”When she went on her first long ride, from Montana to New Mexico, it was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. Ende said she was always fearful and afraid to step out of her comfort zone and ask for help.Ende said you discover things about yourself when you go on a long ride. You learn how strong your will is and your determination to carry on, even when you don’t want to continue. “It took a long time to overcome that,” said Ende. “I never wanted to do this. I cried the day I left. I cried every day for a while. I was just amazed by the generosity. I wish I could take everyone out with me for just one week. It would renew everyone’s faith in people.”Ende said she is constantly bombarding people with daily tasks that are “in their face.” But she added, when you are on the back of a horse, going on a long ride, you learn the art of “can-do-ness”“That has gotten me through many different challenges along the road,” said Ende. “It’s the love and longing of the ride, and everyone should feel that in their rides, in their life.”The image of a horse and rider is an iconic image, she said. To a lot of people, that image symbolizes freedom and what the country was built upon. What each person extracts from seeing her ride is different. Every long ride is a once in a lifetime adventure.“For a lot of women, they are reaching out for strength and they get that,” said Ende. “For men, there are a lot of them who wish they could be the ones doing it. A lot of people are amazed a woman can do this.”Ende said the ride is not just about the horses, it’s the lifestyle of a long rider. She said she was born with a love of horses and has a full background with them, growing up on a dairy farm in Minnesota. When she started long riding, she stepped out of her comfort zone and adapted to the lifestyle. “It’s a way of life,” she said. “I turn 60 this year. If I don’t keep doing this, I won’t want to keep doing it. That’s the life I have chosen, a life of poverty and minimalism.”According to Ende, she lives on about $20 a week. She doesn’t sleep in hotels or eat in restaurants. She sleeps next to her horses and finds, picks and cooks a lot of her food. She also does all of her own horseshoeing and veterinary work. All of her gear, saddles and bridles come from sponsors. Ende supports herself by selling her DVDs of the first 10,000 miles she rode and by giving talks to groups of people. There are those who take her to lunch from time to time when she is on the road and help her in other ways.Ende said she feels there is a need to let people in, to let them get to know her story and to learn about them and what they have been through. Just by being there, with them, sharing her story, she hopes that is enough of a repayment to thank those who have helped her.“Simply by doing what you’re doing, that’s enough,” she said. “That you have shared a part of yourself with them and they have taken something from that.”Ende said she would like to thank the Cheboygan County Fairgrounds for letting her stay there with her horses for two days and for being so helpful.“They were all so nice. They made sure I was all taken care of, even checking in on me at about 10 p.m.,” said Ende. “They were great. It says something about the community.”For more information, visit her at www.endeofthetrail. com or email endehomebase@yahoo. com.